Tech

Your Thumbs Will Love the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE's Keyboard

Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE

Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE

Available on the carrier for $199.99 with a new two-year contract, the phone is competing against the similarly-priced HTC EVO 4G LTE, and the Samsung Galaxy S III on Sprint for your dollars.

Power Takes Center Stage

The power button on the phone is located at the top center of the phone, which can get in the way while typing on the physical keyboard depending on how you hold the phone.

Bulky, For a Reason

Since the Photon Q 4G LTE has a QWERTY keyboard built-in it’s a little thicker than most other Android phones out there on the market. While definitely bulkier than Motorola’s svelte Droid Razr, the handset isn’t a ton thicker than an iPhone, and still can be easily slipped in a pocket.

Physical Keyboard

The Photon Q 4G LTE has a physical keyboard very similar to the one found on the Droid 4.

Dedicated Shutter Button

A dedicated shutter button makes it easy to snap photos just as you might with a traditional camera.

Backlit Keyboard

The keys on the Photon Q are backlit making them easy to see in dark situations, you can also adjust the brightness of the key’s backlight to meet your own personal needs, or set it to adjust based on the ambient light available in the room you’re in.

If you’re a fan of physical keyboards, then the smartphone market doesn’t leave you a ton of great options.

Arriving on Sprint just this past Sunday, the Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE is one of the few options out there. A follow-up to the Photon 4G from last year, this year’s model runs on Sprint’s band new LTE network (where available).

Available on the carrier for $199.99 with a new two-year contract, the phone is competing against the similarly priced HTC EVO 4G LTE, and the Samsung Galaxy S III on Sprint for your dollars. So is it worth it?

Design

The phone has a 4.3-inch qHD (960 x 540 pixel) LCD display, which puts it a cut below some of its competition rocking full HD displays. While you’ll definitely notice a difference when looking at the phone against a higher-resolution display, it’s likely not noticeable enough it will be a problem, perhaps due in part to Motorola’s ColorBoost technology.

ColorBoost makes colors pop on the phone, and help make up for where the screen might be lacking in the resolution department. It’s still not a high-definition display, but it’s not as bad looking as some other qHD options out there.

A volume rocker and dedicated camera shutter bottom live on the left side of the device; on the right you have exposed microUSB and HDMI ports. The power button is dead center on top, with a headphone jack to the left.

Since the Photon Q 4G LTE has a QWERTY keyboard built in, it’s a little thicker than most other Android phones out there. While definitely bulkier than Motorola’s svelte Droid RAZR, the handset isn’t a ton thicker than an iPhone, and still can be easily slipped into a pocket.

Physical Keyboards Are Nice

The Photon Q 4G LTE uses a keyboard exceptionally similar to Motorola’s Droid 4. While most of the physical keyboards I’ve had a chance to play with in recent years have been pretty cramped –- to the point that they were impossible to type on –- the raised keys on the Photon’s large keyboard made typing on it comfortable, and I daresay preferable to using the virtual keyboard.

Much like touchscreen-only smartphones, the Photon Q has a virtual keyboard you can use to type messages. When typing longer messages, however, I found myself sliding out the keyboard to type rather than using the virtual keys on the screen a lot more than I thought I would.

The keys are backlit, making them easy to see in dark situations. You can also adjust the brightness of the key’s backlight to meet your own personal needs, or set it to adjust based on the ambient light available in the room you’re in.

The power button for the phone is awkwardly located on the top center of the handset right where the side of your hand will go while typing. The peculiar placement meant some of my overly enthusiastic typing sessions ended in me turning the screen off, and in some cases starting the process to turn the phone off entirely.

For me personally, it would have been better for Motorola to move the power button to the top right off the device, just to keep it out of the way of hands while using the physical keyboard. If you’re using the phone every day, however, it’s something you could likely adjust to over time.

Software

The Photon Q 4G LTE comes running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich with Motorola’s Application Platform — its new name for MotoBlur –- on top of it.

In a lot of ways the phone feels like it’s running stock Android –- similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus –- perhaps in part due to Google’s acquisition of the company, with a few small differences.

For instance, small arrows appear beside some of the icons. Swiping up on the arrows bring up smaller widgets menus giving you access to the content inside. For instance, swiping arrows beside the text messaging icon will bring up your messages, swiping the phone will bring up your recent phone activity.

Smart Actions help new Android and novice Android owners automate how the phone operates throughout the day — for instance, always connecting to Wi-Fi when you get to work -– to optimize the phone’s performance.

The phone comes with two home screens, but you can add up to five more with customized apps and widgets.

Phone nerds will appreciates that the phone has an unlocked bootloader, so you can really customize the phone if you’re so inclined.

Camera

The Photon Q has an 8-megapixel built-in camera that takes good, but certainly not great pictures. Where companies like HTC have dramatically improved the cameras in their phones over the past year –- the HTC EVO 4G on Sprint takes fantastic pictures — Motorola has kept its cameras relatively un-upgraded, and it shows.

The camera performed poorly in low-light situations, and not all that better in brightly lit locations where you would presume it would work well. Colors were muted, and photos were often blurry and lacked the crispness and clarity of pictures taken from other cameras, overall resulting in a pretty disappointing performance.

Conclusion

The main draw of the Photon Q 4G LTE is obviously going to be its keyboard. The phone is priced to compete with a number of other more powerful smartphones on the market, and a full $50 over the iPhone on Sprint.

If a keyboard is a necessity for you, then we can definitely recommend the Photon Q as a solid option and a great transition device for BlackBerry lovers looking to make the jump to Android.

If you don’t see yourself using the keyboard, however, then you’d be better served to pick up another Android device on the carrier such as the HTC EVO 4G LTE, or Samsung Galaxy S III.

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